How Can We Help Jeremy?

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Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader as of yesterday, has a big task ahead of him – to challenge and change the economic and political status quo, to unite the Labour party, to endure the slings and arrows of an often outrageous press and to somehow continue to get away with wearing pulled up socks and sandals. So, sartorial advice aside, what can we do to help?

Fortunately, the answer is simple – we can do exactly what Corbyn is doing – utilising the power that he’s got to make a difference. Most of us aren’t leading a political party but I’m sure we’re all doing things – we might write blogs, we might volunteer in our local community, we might have drinks with mates down the pub, we might watch Bake Off, we might tweet. Fortunately, all of these provide opportunities to exert the power that we do have to engage with the shift in politics and economics that Corbyn is calling for.

For example, we can write blogs on issues that we’re passionate about; we can chat to the people in our community about the things they care about and how we can support each other; we can offer inspiring visions of a better future to our mates over a pint (and if they challenge us we can calmly remind them that this change is for the best, what’s not to like about greater equality and prosperity!?); we can get inspired to bake cakes for our friends (and decorate them with the Labour flag); and we can tweet stuff too.

This may all be incredibly obvious but I really think it can be that simple – for too long a narrative of individualism, self-interest and cynicism has told us we’re worthless and trying to make a difference is pointless. But it’s just not true, we all have power and we can all use it for good. It might be something incredibly small – a tweet – or something bigger – a cake – but all these things add up. We need community again, we need to start working together, whoever we are and however small the action. And even if it’s just a drop in the ocean what is an ocean other than multitude of drops.

Thanks to Corbynmania politics is finally getting political again – we’re not just being forced to believe some monomythic, dubious status quo there’s actually room for debate. We can get political too by getting clued up on the issues and chatting about them. We don’t have to get it right but starting to investigate the issues is better than not starting at all. We’ll find that beyond the narrative of individualism and self-interest there are many other ways of doing politics and economics, ways that can be inclusive, inspiring, empowering and, most importantly, fun. Understanding the details of the bigger picture can inform the stuff we do at a local level, gradually (or perhaps surprisingly quickly) shifting our politics in a new direction. So many factors and contexts affect the societies we live in and it’s vital we begin exploring them. And that’s how I hope this blog can help. Time for an uplifting video about positive change…

Trolls Just Wanna Have Friends

RobertLeave a comment

In response to my previous post on angry men a friend had this question: “I wonder what the best ways are to redirect mass anger towards positive change rather than destruction?” I kind of feel it’s the million dollar question and in the context of angry men, who have a habit of trolling online, I think it is about trying to redirect that anger away from women and feminism towards actually oppressive and dangerous political elites and economic systems. But the political is personal too and on an emotional level anger is often the flip side of sadness, loneliness and insecurity. So, like the rest of us I think trolls just wanna have friends.

This clip contains explicit and offensive content as it uses the language of trolling in order to parody it.

Imagine I’m an angry man troll: I’m sat in my room at my computer watching one of Anita Sarkeesian’s vlogs calling out sexism in the gaming industry. I am not OK with this – I enjoy video games just as they are and don’t want some random feminist dissing my favourite games and dissing my gender. I sign into my anonymous Youtube account and issue Sarkeesian a death threat, I describe in graphic detail the way in which I’ll kill her and then I go off to make baked beans on toast. Why am I doing this? Perhaps it’s because in a world where people like me are relatively powerless (I’m struggling to find a job, the rent’s too high, no one ever spoke to me about feminism when I was younger, James Bond and Iron Man are my role models, I may be suffering from mental health issues and unsure how to seek support) this is finally a chance to exert some power. Quite a lot of power actually: from my computer I can threaten to kill people and I’ll be able to get away with it.

The above might be what goes through the head of an angry guy and it might not. But the point I want to make is that in the mind of the angry guy his response is perfectly normal – given the world he lives in his reaction makes sense (to him). To change this we’ve got to be able to show him why this response might not actually make sense. Firstly, his anonymous death threats have real world consequences – the psychological suffering caused is immense (Mary Beard, a professor at Cambridge University, befriended one of her trolls, told him about the effects of his trolling and even wrote him a job reference!). Secondly, living as we do in a consumer, capitalist society why does the troll waste so much energy attacking those calling for greater justice rather than those who cynically profit from consumerist capitalism – the loaded elites who are quite happy for the ‘masses’ to squabble amongst themselves as it lets them off the hook? Perhaps it’s easier to attack closer-at-hand feminists rather than distant, exceptionally powerful elites who have a knack for staying in power. But surely one things gamers know is that it’s way more fun to take on the big bad guy rather than the scapegoat – Luke Skywalker didn’t diss Princess Leia for having opinions, no, he teamed up with her and took on the entire Empire!

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the ‘angry man troll’ doesn’t actually exist because it’s a trope and a stereotype commonly used to essentialise people and explain them away. People are far more complex than any box we might wish to put them in. It’s important to remember this as we seek to get to know people beyond our usual social circles and before we go off on one complaining about angry men trolls…woops!

They say it takes a whole village to raise a child and I guess it takes a whole society to create an angry man troll. There’s no one person to blame, not the individual himself, because there are just so many factors that contribute to how someone grows up and lives – media, education, entertainment, economics, politics, etc. Our challenge is to make sure all these pillars of our society act in a way that promotes equality and well-being (not exactly a small challenge). And guys, even if they do get angry, are an exceptionally important part of this movement. Indeed, there’s a lot in it for them too – more friends, a greater diversity of video games to choose from, free lessons in emotional intelligence and how to relate to people, more confidence, self-esteem, job opportunities, and even more chances to have great, consenting sex with other adults (because they’ll have the guts to ask for it (in a mature, respectful way) and the decency to not ask again when someone says no). But this equal and just utopia, surely it’s just a pipe dream, a waste of time, why bother? Well, before I get onto that here’s Lily Allen poking a little fun at trolls aka URL Badmen. To be continued…

The Song Of Angry Men

RobertLeave a comment

There’s quite a lot of anger on the internet these days. It’s often perpetuated by men and anonymous trolls. I’m guilty too as some of my blog posts veer from ‘witty social commentary’ into ‘angry rant’. Thinking of anger and men reminds me of the song Do you hear the people sing? from the hit West End show Les Miserables. It’s sung by a bunch of young, male students in 1830s revolutionary France who want to overthrow the corrupt political regime and make a better world. “Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?” they ask and, yeah, they’re all pretty angry. Unfortunately, things don’t go to plan and all the revolutionaries are killed whilst the regime stays in power. But the question remains: what’s the deal with all these angry men?

A contemporary (non-musical) example would be the many responses to Anita Sarkeesian’s vlogs on sexism in the gaming industry and online. So many guys are furious that Sarkeesian would call out the sexism so rampant in the industry. They’re so angry they even issue death threats. Now, I could write an angry blog post about these guys’ angry blog posts but I’m more interested in exploring the anger itself.

Anger is a strong emotion that tends to be used as a defence mechanism to very aggressively maintain one’s security and comfort zone. If you’re a male gamer who likes the gaming world and its portrayal of women it’s understandable that you’d feel threatened when someone criticises it. Furthermore, given that guys are often not well educated in emotional intelligence and expression then it’s not surprising that their upset manifests as anger. Contextualising this further we can note other issues men face in the 21st century. For starters the gold standard of masculinity is still the James Bond style, breadwinning, tough guy. Most guys won’t achieve this and will be belittled by the ones that think they do. And of that latter group they’ll spend most of their time competing with one another to be alpha male and will hardly get a chance to just chill out and be nice. Of course, this gold standard is really just an outdated, redundant stereotype that only ever makes sense in shoddy Hollywood films and abysmal advertising campaigns – it’s a fiction but many guys labour under the belief that it’s an ascertainable and desirable goal. Add to this the problems of economic recession and dwindling job markets that many countries face and it’s even harder for men to find meaning ‘being men’.

Unfortunately, these larger economic and political issues tend to get ignored as guys look elsewhere to vent their anger – usually at women and feminism who they perceive to be threats. Case in point with Anita Sarkeesian – rather than guys acknowledging that greater equality for the sexes is a good thing and greater diversity in video games is also good (think about it, there will be more games to choose from) they think it’s the feminists who are the problem rather than the cynical gaming companies who want to make money peddling damaging, uninspired stereotypes.

But what should angry men do with all this anger? Should they just ignore it, bottle it up and hope it goes away…until the next blog rant. Well, this is a big question and one for another blog post. In the meantime here’s some Les Miserables awesomeness…

Ex-Spectre-ing Some More Sexism

RobertLeave a comment

Spectre, the new James Bond film will soon be imposed upon us. On 6th November we’ll be subjected to yet another shaken and stirred mess of misogyny and sexism. But before that cinematic delight let’s recap James Bond in the time of Daniel Craig, a time of strong female protagonists, normalised diversity and astute political observation – actually no, none of that.

Things got off to a goodish start (bearing in mind this is James Bond) with Casino Royale – Bond lost the silly gadgets and the objecitfying intro credits but unfortunately kept everything else, namely the sexism. Eva Green plays Vesper Lynd – a female character who is simultaneously seductress and victim (the two going roles for most women in Bond films). Bond falls in love with her (y’know to show his human side) but soon finds out she’s been double-crossing him from the start, naturally she dies (she drowned in a lift). Meanwhile, Caterina Murino does her duty as ‘second Bond woman’ – she sleeps with him, reveals some useful info and then gets strangled in a hammock. Meanwhile, there’s a load of tedious stuff to do with “high stakes” poker games, defibrillators and wicker chairs.

Onto Quantum of Solace and things were looking up. Olga Kurylenko plays Camille Mentes, a strong female character able to match Bond in terms of sleuthing and fighting ability. Furthermore, her romance with Bond consists only of a goodbye kiss. Of course, all the fighting at the end gets too much for her and she needs some rescuing. Things are much worse for Gemma Arterton’s character Strawberry Fields (reminiscent of Pussy Galore and Titty Bonanza) who goes all the way with Bond and gets drowned in crude oil as a consequence. Judi Dench does her usual bossy, mother type thing as Bond’s boss M. In terms of plot there’s some progress: it’s curiously politically relevant – the main baddy is instigating land grabs in Bolivia in order to monopolise a scarce natural resource, fresh water, whilst funding political instability in the country. This actually happens in real life. Oh, but the ridiculous opening credits make a reappearance – this time naked women in sand dunes.

Then Skyfall. It saw where the franchise could be going – slightly better roles for women and politically relevant plots – and then enforced a U-turn, taking Bond back to the 70s. With regards the portrayal of women – firstly, it’s questionable whether the female lead played by Bérénice Marlohe actually consents to the sex she has with Bond in the ‘shower scene’. Of course, that doesn’t bother Bond and minutes later she’s bound and gagged and shot in the head by the arch-villain. Naomie Harris’ character, who accidentally shot Bond off a bridge in the opening sequence, ends the film by quitting her job as a field agent and settling down to become the secretary aka Moneypenny. Judi Dench’s M gets shot in the back and replaced by Volderment…Ralph Fiennes. Oh and Ben Whishaw’s Q provides a whole load of pointless gadgets. This whole film was basically Sam Mendes giving the finger to equality because he’s a rich, white man in power who can.

What now for Spectre? Not a lot really. There’s some excitement that Monica Belluci is in it, the oldest Bond woman at 50! But she plays the widow of a spy James Bond kills, so it’s likely that Bond will sleep with her and then kill her, or she’ll get killed by one of the baddies. Léa Seydoux plays the other Bond woman. She’s 30, so will probably survive until the end. Meanwhile, Bond’s up to some mischief in Mexico City at the start of the film telling the all new, white, male M that he was “taking some overdue holiday” – well, I think it’s high time James Bond take some overdue holiday from our cinema screens…forever. Here’s the trailer – guess which plot device hasn’t already been used in a Bond film? Oh, none of them.

“Luke, Use The Patriarchy…”

RobertLeave a comment

Light sabres, Tie Fighters and Jabba the Hutt – it’s all a bit phallocentric (willy orientated). Yup, the Star Wars films are just one of many Hollywood franchises that promote patriarchy and under-represent women. And the reason for this isn’t just that Hollywood is full of sexist men with limited imaginations but it’s also because George Lucas based the plot of the original trilogy on one of the most enduringly sexist story structures – the Hero’s Quest.

This story structure was explored and popularised by the mythologist Joseph Campbell in the mid 1900s. In brief, the quest is as follows: a young, male hero is called to action, he leaves home, learns new skills from (usually male) mentors, begins his quest, faces trials, proves his heroism, overcomes the dark father figure and eventually triumphs. Women tend to be tokenised as nasty seductresses in need of vanquishing or pretty trophies in need of saving. Campbell examined cultures around the world and throughout history and argued that this structure kept repeating itself hence the title of his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces – yup, 1000s of male heroes doing their phallocentric thing (probably with swords or giant laser sticks). Campbell adds in a bit of Jung, Freud and fairytale analysis – suggesting that these characters are manifestations of our psyche (as if we all have lots of little libidinous armed men running around our heads). He deigned the Hero’s Quest an archetypal story structure and called it a monomyth – a monolithic mythic structure because he’s it’s such a big deal.

George Lucas, good friends with Joseph Campbell, based the first three Star Wars films on this structure – Luke is the hero, Yoda is his mentor, his call to action is the death of his foster parents, he rescues a princess, he fights a lot and there’s even the dark father figure who is both vanquished and made peace with. Of course, the twist was that the princess turned out to be the hero’s sister, so instead of the girl Luke got a bit of fame (and a metallic right hand).

However, one thing both Lucas and Campbell appear to forget to do is contextualise the Hero’s Quest. Rather than just assume it is some universal manifestation of the human subconscious in story form what if it’s such a pervasive story because it’s constantly used to justify the patriarchal conventions that many societies depend on. So many societies are run by and for men and it seems quite natural that this phallocentric (it’s a great word) bent appears in their stories, novels, movies and TV programmes. As is ever the case if we want to understand the human condition – and in this case it’s the recurrence of masculinist story structures – we need to contextualise it.

But there may be hope. Watching the trailer for the next Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, reveals characters of colour and female characters having lead roles (as well as being able to use The Force). Maybe the all-white boys club is finally coming to an end and the patriarchy is going the way of Darth Vader and the Old Republic. Of course, there will always be those who want to grab their phalli light sabres and defend oppressive traditions but it’s time the next generation taught them a lesson. The lesson being that it’s not the princess who needs saving it’s the hero – saving from the clutches of an oppressive, violent and creatively dull (so dull it rewrites the same story over and over again, 1000 faces…more like 1000 yawns) patriarchal system.

MOLI – Missing Out & Loving It

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We’ve all heard of FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out – a phenomenon that’s on the rise given the proliferation of social media and all the ways we can discover what we’re not doing. There’s facebook to tell us about all the parties our friends are at but we’re not, twitter to point out all the job opportunities we’re letting slip by, tinder to remind us of all the people who aren’t that into us and instagram to show us all the beaches we are not sunbathing on. The sheer quantity of stuff we’re not doing can get overwhelming, indeed FOMO forms part of many mental health problems including anxiety and depression. Whilst this blog will not deal with these more severe and distressing instances of missing out I do want to offer a simple way of getting over mild cases of FOMO – it’s called MOLI – Missing Out & Loving It.

Suffering from FOMO can be a bit like the five stages of grief – first there’s denial: “I’m not going to Petra’s party but I’m fine with that, totally fine.” Then there’s anger: “Why didn’t Petra invite me to the party? What’s wrong with me, I’m fun aren’t I? Dam Petra and her party to hell!” Then bargaining, “Come on Petra, please invite me, come on Petra” (although this we’re more likely to say in our head rather than out loud). And depression: “I’m super sad that I’m not going to the party, *unhappy emoticon*”. And finally acceptance: “I’m not going to the party…oh…it’s already the next day and the party’s over.”

It’s a difficult process to go through and often very unpleasant. However, I reckon MOLI can be employed as a means of avoiding stages one through to four and getting straight to the final bit, acceptance. Basically, everyday there are literally billions of things we aren’t doing, there are jobs we’re not applying for, new friends we’re not making, partners we’re not falling in love with, parties we’re not going to etc but rather than let these things overwhelm us we can get a little Buddhist on it and just shrug it off – “Sure these things are happening but hey I’ll just enjoy the stuff I am doing (even if it’s just chilling at home watching Bake Off and eating a Mars Bar).”

Consumer culture thrives off making us dissatisfied with our lives – always a new top to buy, the latest trendy bar to drink at, a new clique to hang out with – whilst actively discouraging us from finding pleasure and meaning in the stuff we do do. We’re constantly encouraged to look away from what we’ve got towards what we don’t have. But we can reverse this – we can look closer to home at the friends we do hang out with, the events we do go to and the things we do treasure rather than constantly comparing ourselves to others. It’s a gentle habit we can foster by making a point of enjoying the stuff we’ve got. We can certainly acknowledge the stuff we’re not doing but most of the time that’s fine, why not just let it go screw itself and enjoy what’s happening here and now.

If MOLI doesn’t work one back up plan is IPS – It’s Probably Shit – sure they’re all smiling in the photos and it’s sunny but think of all the stuff you can’t see – Paul’s suffering from a terrible stomach bug and has actually spent most of the holiday in bed/on the loo, Jabrill and Maya have just had another relationship row, Archie’s been drinking way too much again and Marie’s wondering why she got in so much debt for this shoddy holiday anyway. They might be putting on some convincing fake smiles but It’s Probably Shit.

So yeah, I’m Missing Out but, guess what, I’m Loving It. Unlike this woman…

Little Mix And The Truth About Love

RobertLeave a comment

The song Black Magic by Little Mix promises so much: how to make your fella notice you more, how to get him on side and how to make him stay. “All the girls on the block knocking at my door,” sing the band, “Wanna know what it is make the boys want more.” This all female pop quartet is offering the answer to true love – the Holy Grail of relationships. When it comes to finding Mr Right Little Mix know exactly what to do, they possess the secret to finding true love. It can’t get much better than that right? Well, it doesn’t, because Little Mix’s sneaky satire reveals that hopeless romantics are hopeless for a reason and the chorus tells us exactly why.

For those seeking love Little Mix offer a “secret potion” and “a spell that can’t be broken”. All you need is one drop and a single sip will ensure the drinker falls madly in love with you. And the name of this recipe, well, it’s called Black Magic.

That’s right, magic. It turns out that magic is the only way to produce true love. Of course, Little Mix, being the great 21st satirist’s that they are, know magic doesn’t exist which means that the logical conclusion of this song is that true love doesn’t exist either. It’s a bleak take on romance and relationships as Little Mix deny the very existence of that thing so many people crave and seek. All those adverts, posters and films about romance and love are rendered terrible lies now that Little Mix have exposed the truth – love makes about as much sense as reading tea leaves.

We live in dark times – climate change, a Conservative government, Mission Impossible 5 – and now Little Mix have added yet another cloud to the storm. Their nihilism jars with the catchy nature of the song but the bitter truth is there in the words – true love is nothing but a fantasy. To quote a fellow cultural commentator, “this is the moment when Little Mix looked into the void and the void looked back.”

Equally Objectified

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The video to Sigma’s latest long ft. Ella Henderson, Glitterball (see below), consists of a group of people going swimming in the sea. This isn’t your usual Brighton family holiday, no, it’s a group of conventionally good-looking and toned young people larking about. The women wear bikinis, squeeze each other’s bums, hug frequently, and show a lot of cleavage, whilst the guys, well the guys tend to be wearing quite a lot of clothes with perhaps the odd flash of six-pack in the background. So why, given that there are a plethora of semi-naked bodies and a roughly even gender split in the video, couldn’t they have objectified the men as much as the women?

We’ve been conditioned to view women’s bodies in a certain way on-screen whilst men’s bodies are often treated very differently. Blurred Lines, the infamous Robin Thicke song, epitomised this attitude with a terribly misogynistic and sexist video (and that’s saying nothing about the lyrics). However, it’s interesting to watch a parody version of the video (see below) in which the female models are replaced by men in g-strings and tiny underwear. It seems there’s something a little ridiculous about men having little stop signs stuck to their bottoms and dancing so provocatively, whilst it was presented as almost ‘normal’ for women to be treated and viewed in this way in the original video. At least that’s what I think we’re being made to believe – that treating women like this is OK and when it’s guys it’s just quite silly and comic.

The feminist film critique Laura Mulvey calls this phenomenon the male gaze – the way in which visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. A guy (usually white, cisgendered and heterosexual) isn’t going to want to see a video of a man rubbing sun tan lotion into his six-pack or bending over to pick up his beach towel, no, he wants women to do that, or at least that is what the relentlessly objectifying world of music videos and advertising tells us. Equality is a long way off and sexism towards women is just part of the culture.

So there’s a long way to go until men and women are equally objectified in music videos (come on guys, time we stripped off and started massaging ourselves provocatively) and even further still until people aren’t objectified at all (because people are people, not just bodies). Until then here’s Marina and The Diamonds evening the scales a little…

The Slightly Sexist Song Of The Sea

Robert12 Comments

The Song of the Sea is a new animated film for children and adults. It tells the tale of Ben and his younger sister Saoirse. It’s beautifully animated and based on folkloric Irish tales of Selkies – mythological creatures that are seals in water and shed their skins to become humans on land. Unbeknownst to Ben his mother was a Selkie and so is his little sister. It is a stunning story about grief, growing up and family. However, the more I watched it the more I realised that I had seen this story many, many times before and it’s one that has been told over and over again – it’s the one all about men.

Song of the Sea

I’ll start with a brief plot synopsis (spoilers): Ben lives in a lighthouse with his pregnant mum and dad. The mum gives Ben a magic shell and then goes missing into the sea leaving behind Saoirse, his little sister. Six years later and the dad’s still pretty unhappy and Saoirse still hasn’t said a word. Meanwhile, Saoirse discovers a magic coat left behind by her mum which lets her transform into a seal. She goes swimming for a bit and that’s when we learn she’s a Selkie. Unfortunately, nasty granny arrives to take Ben and Saoirse back to the city. Ben doesn’t really like Saoirse and is annoyed when she follows him as he escapes from his granny’s house. Some magical fairies inform the siblings that Saoirse’s a Selkie and must sing the Song of the Sea to free all the trapped spirits – it’s a shame she doesn’t speak. Unfortunately she gets kidnapped by a witch, Macha, who bottles up people’s feelings (literally) thereby turning them to stone. Her reason is that she couldn’t handle her son (a giant) being so sad when his wife died so she bottled up his grief and turned him into a giant cliff (the dad is basically the giant and the gran is Macha). Ben rescues his sister who starts playing the magic shell which causes all the bottles to break. Macha, part stone, is overwhelmed by her feelings but relents and helps transport Ben and Saoirse back home. There, Saoirse finally speaks and she sings a magic Selkie song that frees all the ancient spirits so they can finally return to their magical land far away. The mum reappears to take Saoirse away with her but instead Saoirse relinquishes her Selkie abilities so she can stay with her dad and brother. Everyone lives happily ever after, even the nasty gran who shacks up with the old ferry driver.

It’s a nice story full of metaphors, folklore and fantasy but there are some all too familiar and all too sexist tropes. To start with there aren’t many female characters – there’s the mum who vanishes within minutes; the gran who is the typical crone character – old, haggard and someone no one would ever want to grow up to become and Macha – the evil villain who is basically an even worse version of the gran. The main female character is Saoirse.

Firstly, she is voiceless, she literally has no voice for most of the film, which means Ben gets to do all the talking. Whilst she is often portrayed as more intelligent than her wilful, older brother, who drags her around on a dog’s lead for quite a bit of the film, she is still forced to follow him, even when she knows he’s going in the wrong direction. He becomes less ambivalent towards her once he’s learnt she’s a Selkie. As the film progresses she becomes weaker and weaker and ends up getting kidnapped. This inspires Ben to take even more action and battle the film’s antagonist. It seems a little bit as if Saoirse only has worth as a character once her brother has realised she’s useful – i.e. has magic singing abilities.  He’s the one that puts the magic shell to her lips so she can play it and break all of Macha’s magic bottles. It’s almost as if little girls are being told to tolerate the whims and bullying behaviours of their elder brothers until their brothers realise they have voice and worth, and only then can they become somewhat empowered.

After her rescue Saoirse is even weaker meaning it is Ben  that must overcome his fear of swimming and dive deep to uncover Saoirse’s thrown away Selkie suit. So despite the fact that the sea is Saorise’s element and true home it still ends up being all about Ben and his newfound abilities. Meanwhile, Saoirse’s singing and shell playing skills appear somewhat arbitrary given that she just inherited them and they’re basically magical.  Saoirse’s voicelessness also means that apart from one brief chat with her mum right at the end the film categorically fails the Bechdel test. FInally, when Saoirse does eventually speak her first word isn’t hello or help or patriarchy, no, it’s Ben.

There are some nice messages in the film – namely that stories are very important, be they ones that run in the family or older more mythical stories that came long before the stories of the Bible. The film reminds us that our culture suffers when we lose our stories but it’s just a shame that the film’s own story tells us that men are the active ones whilst women sit around either trying to muck everything up (the gran and Macha) or are basically just there to sing at men’s command. The film also has something to say about men’s inability to emote, namely because the father remains confused and grief-stricken long after the disappearance of his wife but even this is implicitly traced back to his overprotective mother (the nasty gran) who constantly tells him she knows what’s best and lives a repressed, devout Christian life. This story is reflected in the mythical one with Macha literally turning her giant son to stone so he would no longer have to suffer the grief of the loss of his wife – if only women would stop meddling seems to be the point here. Other male characters include the comic ferry driver, the faeries (we see a few female faeries in the background at the end but none are given a voice) and the Great Seanachai – a mythical storyteller who remembers all the old stories and is thus a font of cultural knowledge and wisdom, oh, and he’s a man.

So, fifteen years into the 21st century and what do we get – another mythic adventure about boys and men saving the day. It’s nice that Saoirse sings her special song at the end and frees all the spirits but this is basically the same as Pepper Potts donning Iron Man’s suit at the end of Iron Man 3 in order to blast the main baddy to smithereens – it’s great a woman saves the day but it’s all a bit last-minute and tokenistic. Why not a whole film about an interesting and three-dimensional female character doing awesome and exciting things?

But that’s just it, it’s not that this film is a sexist travesty and should be banned, no, it’s just that this film follows in a long, long line of films and stories just like it – ones that portray men as the active and characterful heroes whilst women are painted as passive and regularly in need of rescue. The Song of the Sea slots so easily into this pervasive cultural narrative when it had so much scope to start rewriting it – why couldn’t it be Benjamina running off in search of her fey little Selkie brother? Why couldn’t the father have vanished right at the start? And why are there no characters of colour, or trans and queer characters partaking in the action, surely ancient Irish folklore isn’t just for white, heterosexual cisgendered people? The film has been described as a “timeless delight for all ages”- it’s only timeless because this masculinist and sexist narrative is so seemingly unkillable. It’s great to be inspired by old stories but it’s time we started telling some new ones, fit for the 21st century.

Update on 11th December 2024: I wrote this post over nine years ago and I’m grateful that so many people are still reading it. I’m also grateful to the folks who take the time to write comments. However, I’m not grateful when people try to insult me in their comments. For the time being I’m approving people’s comments but this may well change if/when I get tired of being insulted. You are welcome to disagree with my post and you are welcome to comment thoughtfully and respectfully. There are other comments which contain prejudice – these immediately get deleted. I’m sure I’ll write a post about this whole experience soon.

Would You Like To Flake With That?

Robert2 Comments

The Urban Dictionary tells us that flaking (v.) means to bail out of something at the last-minute whilst a flake (n.) is an unreliable person; someone who agrees to do something, but never follows through. Now, I wasn’t around in olden days but I’ve got a hunch that flaking as an activity is on the rise and the number of flakes in society is increasing. This is partly due to the arbitrary increase in population size (so the number of flakes may well grow proportionately with that) but also because consumer culture encourages flaking whilst modern technology makes it far easier. So here’s a quick blog on the rise of flaking and why I certainly don’t want a flake with that.A Flake

To be happy in consumer society you’ve always got to buy the next big thing, keep on trend and own more stuff. There’s never any chance just to slow down and enjoy what you’ve got because if everyone slowed down then the economy would stop growing. This attitude of cost-benefit analysis and accumulation easily percolates into our social lives as we weigh up which event will most likely maximise our happiness. There’s so much to do so rather than commit to one thing we hold out on the off-chance something better comes up. This means we flake a lot. And it’s even easier to flake now we’ve got smartphones – all we need is a weak wifi signal to let our friend now that we’ve decided not to see them because something else has come up or, y’know, we just couldn’t be bothered. Back in the days of telephones-we-couldn’t-put-in-our-pockets flaking on an event was probably a bigger deal because more effort had to be put into arranging to meet in a certain place at a certain time, but now it just takes the silent clicks of a few touchscreen buttons.

Now, I get that in this world of shrinking economics, laptops and internet that everyone is very busy. We’re all so busy getting caught up in a flailing capitalist consumer economy but why should friendships have to suffer for that? Why pretend to commit to something that you probably won’t turn up to, why not just be honest? Of course, honesty is difficult and we fear upsetting people by telling them we’re not too fussed about hanging out with them which is why we try to smooth the situation with some half-hearted apology – “Oh I’m so sorry I didn’t make it, I’ve just been so busy and blah blah blah.”

Sometimes the apology is worse than the actual act of flaking itself because what it seems to say is this: hey, so I’m aware I flaked on you and I feel bad about it so can you stop me feeling bad by accepting this quasi-apology. But what about the person who has been flaked on, aren’t they thinking something like this: hey, so I’m actually somewhat upset that you flaked on me, it kinda suggests you didn’t give me much of a second thought, but now you want me to make you feel better by accepting your apology…well, I can’t fricking have coffee with your apology.

I think the simplest way to get around this increasing social problem is to create two different types of social event – the ‘event-event’ and the ‘flake-event’ – the former is one to which both (or all) parties are committed and will make as much of an effort as possible to attend (save ill-health, unforeseen grave circumstances etc) whilst the second is one that neither party will get too excited about because one or both may well decide to do something else or just decide to do nothing. The ‘event-event’ and ‘flake-event’ categories at least acknowledge that flaking is a common activity and helps us to cope with it better, rather than the endless half-apologies. Of course, we could just try to make more of an effort. Here’s comedian Aziz Ansari summing up flaking very nicely…